Our 7th Grade Curriculum | 2019-2020

I'm pretty sure our Eastern Hemisphere curriculum last year was our favorite to date.  We had a fantastic 6th grade year and are excited to jump back into another year of World History this year. 

Here's what we're doing for our 7^th Grade Curriculum...

• Bible: Bible Study Guide for All Ages, Children's Bible Field Guide
  
• Math: Math U See - Pre-Algebra
• Language Arts: Essentials in Writing - Level 8 
• Spelling: All About Spelling - Level 7
• Grammar: Grammar for the Well Trained Mind - Level 1
• Reading: Library Books & Sonlight Readers
• History: Sonlight Core G - World History 1
  
• Science: - Noeo Physics 2
• Language: Sign Language Made Simple
• PE: Golf, Swimming, Hiking
• Music: Piano Lessons    
• Typing: Typing Instructor
  
  
  
  
  
  Sonlight Core G - World History 1 - This year there is a lap book that goes along with our history core which  should be a fun way for the girls to get some hands one activities to instill what they learn. As always we can't wait to dive into this great list of books!
  
   
  Noeo Physics 2 - So many fun experiments to do in science this year!

  

  For English this year we are sticking with Essentials in Writing.  The girls did amazingly well last year after jumping ahead a year so we plan to continue moving forward.  We will also be doing our last year of spelling with All About Spelling 7, and then attempting to complete the Grammar for the Well Trained Mind book 1.  We started it last year and it got to be so advanced we decided to pause it up and pick it up in 7th grade. 
  

   

  

  I can never say enough good things about Math-U-See and this year we'll be doing Pre-Algebra.  The Mastery approach has been SO good for the girls and has really allowed them to feel confident moving forward with each thing we learn in Math.

   

  

  We are finally on our last year of Bible Study Guide for All Ages.  This will be our fourth year and after this year the girls will have studied the entire Bible.  They will have completed a timeline of the entire Bible as well as mapped where everything took place.  It's been a commitment but one I'll be happy to see them complete.  We plan to continue working on our ASL using a variety of sources as well as a formal typing program now that the girls have their own laptops.

  
  

  
  

   

   

   
  

First Day of 7th Grade | 2019-2020

We have Jr Highers in the house!!!  My beautiful girls are in 7th grade and we're excited to be starting school after a crazy busy summer of travel.  We took a family vacation to Maui, hubby and I went to Italy & Greece for 2 weeks while the girls took a trip to Seattle, I took a girls trip to Palm Springs, the girls went to jr high summer camp, and we took a family trip to New York with the girls for the first time.  It felt like we were gone as much as we were home but it was an amazing summer with tons of memories made.  The girls are already loving being involved in the Jr High youth group at church and had a fun activity every Wednesday that they enjoyed participating in when we weren't traveling. We're all ready and excited to settle into a bit of a routine now that school is starting again. 

Here's to an amazing 7th grade year.  I can't believe this is our 9th year homeschooling.  We're in the big leagues now and I have no doubt it will be another amazing year!

Our 6th Grade Curriculum | 2018-2019

I don't think I can ever praise Sonlight highly enough for what it has done to transform our schooling into something we can all be excited about.  The love for reading it has cultivated in my girls makes me overjoyed.  This year we're especially excited to be in the Eastern Hemisphere core.  The idea of learning about and praying through the 10/40 window of those unreached with the gospel has us all excited.  We have so many good books just sitting on the shelf waiting for us to read that I know it will be another great year.  

Here's what we're doing for our 6^th Grade Curriculum...

• Bible: Bible Study Guide for All Ages, Case for Kids, How to Study Your Bible for Kids
• Math: Math U See - Zeta
• Language Arts: Essentials in Writing - Level 7 
• Spelling: All About Spelling - Level 6
• Grammar: Grammar for the Well Trained Mind - Level 1
• Reading: Library Books & Sonlight Readers
• History: Sonlight Core F - Eastern Hemisphere
• Science: - Noeo Chemistry 2
• Vocabulary:  Wordly Wise 3000 - Level 6
• Logic: Orbiting with Logic
• Language: Sign Language Made Simple
• PE: Golf, Swimming, Hiking
• Music: Piano Lessons    
• Art: Art Classes 

Sonlight F - Eastern Hemisphere - History, Bible, and Literature.  Look at all the amazing books!!!  There are quite a few missionary stories this year which we all LOVE, and also quite a few of the girls readers which I can't wait to read as well. 

NOEO Chemistry 2 - So many fun experiments to do this year.  Not pictured is the core science book the Science Encyclopedia that we will use from last year.

Math-U-See - Zeta.  Fractions went so smoothly last year.  I kept waiting to get stuck and have them feel defeated or complain about how hard it was.  Nope, smooth sailing thanks to this amazing program and it's mastery approach to math.  Hoping we have another great year with those pesky decimals and percents.

Language Arts this year is pretty much staying the same though we've dropped handwriting and finished writing with ease.  I'm really excited about our new Grammar program which is a continuation of First Language Lessons but for middle school.  It uses the same definitions and examples but goes more in depth.  We also decided to skip Essentials in Writing 6 and jump straight into 7.  Since we have such a good grammar program we found all the worksheets for the first half of the year in Essentials to be a bit too easy and boring so 7 will remove much of that review and jump into writing assignments much earlier.  We still love All About Spelling so we'll continue on with that.

Just a few of our electives this year.  We have absolutely loved going though Bible Study Guide for All Ages.  We're now half way through the entire Bible with 2 years left.  We do it 3 days a week and then Case for Kids will be 1 day a week, and on Friday's the girls will do a lesson each week in Kay Arthur's How to Study Your Bible for Kids.  We're still doing Logic, ASL, Art Classes, and Piano Lessons.

Let the 6th Grade year commence!!!

First Day of 6th Grade | 2018-2019

Another summer has flown by and we're jumping in feet first to our first year of middle school.  How did I become a homeschool mom of middle schoolers?  We started school on Monday and put in an amazing first week that went from being dreaded to a wonderful week with excitement about all that we're going to be learning this year.  I love that we always start out a bit hesitant and unready to give up our summer but after only a few days each year we're happy about the routine and all our new books get us excited about what's to come. 

With that said, I'm always in awe of how absolutely grown up these girls look each year.  In addition to how much older they look, they have been growing like weeds this past year.  They have each grown 3 inches since the start of school last year.  Brin is still just about 2" taller than her sister which Av swears she'll catch up with. 

And because it's always fun to see them grow, here's all our years homeschooling and how much they have grown and changed through the process.  I can't believe we've been doing this for 8 years!!!
 

Avalyn - Preschool - 6th Grade

 Brinley - Preschool - 6th Grade

Our 5th Grade Curriculum | 2017-2018

We're still loving Sonlight and are excited to jump into our second year of US History.  The girls loved all we learned about our nation and it's founders last year and are excited to be pickup up at the gold rush where we left off.  I can't wait to read all the amazing books we have for this year and continue to be so thankful that we've chosen this path of homeschooling for our family.

Here's what we're doing for our 5^th Grade Curriculum...

• Bible: Sonlight Core D, Bible Study Guide for All Ages, Journaling
• Math: Math U See - Epsilon
• Language Arts: Essentials in Writing - Level 5 
• Spelling: All About Spelling - Level5
• Writing: Writing with Ease - Level 4
  
• Grammar: First Language Lessons - Level4
• Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting - E
• Reading: Library Books & Sonlight Readers
• History: Sonlight Core D (American History 2) 
• Science: - Noeo Biology 2
• Vocabulary:  Wordly Wise 3000 - Level 5
• Logic: Logic Liftoff & Logic Safari
• Language: Sign Language Made Simple
• PE: Golf, Swimming Hiking
• Music: Piano Lessons    
• Art: Draw & Write Through History, Art Classes 
  
  
  
  
  
  Sonlight - History, Bible, and Literature for American History Pt 2.  This pile of books always makes me so happy!
  
  
  
   NOEO - Biology 2.  The girls are so excited about diving further into Biology this year.  I just ordered a new higher powered microscope since they were enjoying the little one so much.  I love that they have such an excitement about science!
  
  
  
   The girls rocked long division last year and we still absolutely love Math-U-See so this year it's fractions!  I have no doubt they'll do a great job and they're already loving the new fraction overlay kit.
  
  
  
  We're sticking with all the same language arts that we did last year.  All About Spelling has been a hit since Kinder so that stays.  The girls are getting so much better at summarizing and dictation we're continuing on with Writing with Ease and First Language Lessons has been great in helping them really cement their grammar.  This is likely our last year of handwriting and we're moving forward with another year of Essentials in Writing because they did really well with it last year and liked the format.
  
  
  
  For our electives this year we are continuing to do ASL, but with a new video curriculum as well as Bible, logic, piano, and art classes that we take as a co-op with other homeschool friends.
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First Day of 5th Grade | 2017-2018

It's that time of year again!  After a fun summer full of checking items off our family bucket list it's time to start this whole school thing up again.  We've just finished our second week of 5th grade and the girls are loving it!  They were not very excited about giving up their summer days of playing, swimming, and having no schedule but as soon as we finished our first day they couldn't stop talking about how much they loved school and were excited about all the things we were doing.  So without further ado, here are the girls first day of school pics to ring in our 5th grade year!

What's on the bookshelf?

We do A LOT of reading each day.  Using Sonlight as our core, which is a literature based program, ensures we'll never be short on books.  We have a book we are going through for our Bible time, we have a literature based science program so there's a book we read for science, usually more than 1 book we're working through for history, and then our read-aloud also ties in with what we are learning for history.  If that's not enough the girls have a book they have to read on their own for history and then they have a fun book of their choosing that they need to spend at least 30 mins each day reading.  We also like to read as a family so we almost always have a read-aloud we are going through together in the evenings and or an audio-book we are listening to.  If you're counting that's upwards at 8+ books at any given time.

I love that reading together and on our own is such a huge part of our family and something we all value.  I'm so thankful that over the last few years the girls have truly developed a love of reading.  We tend to check out library books by the stack and work our way through them each week.  I'm so thankful for an amazing library system that we can utilize to incorporate so many great books into our lives.

For the past two years the girls have really loved American Girl books.  At the start of the summer they had gotten to the place where they had read almost all of them and were ready to move onto something else.  I was excited that they were finally old enough to read well and enjoy the classics so I started ordering a ton of great classics for them to read from the library.

Although we only require 30 mins of reading each day, it's not unusual to find the girls curled up for a few hours getting through their next great adventure.  And drives in the car are usually very silent as they each tend to read everywhere we go.  I can't tell you how happy that makes my heart!

These are a few of the books you could find the girls reading over the summer...

Stuart Little – E.B. White
The Whipping Boy – Sid Fleichman

Emily’s Runaway Imagination – Beverly Cleary

Ginger Pye – Eleanor Estes

Socks – Beverly Cleary

Misty of Chiconteague – Marguerite Henry

Ralph S. Mouse – Beverly Cleary

Island of the Blue Dolphins – Scott O’Dell

The Incredible Journey – Sheila Burnford

Dear Mr. Henshaw – Beverly Cleary

Lumber Camp Library – Natalie Kinsey-Warnock

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne

The Trumpet of the Swan – E.B. White

Number the Stars – Lois Lowry

My Father’s Dragon – Ruth Stiles Garnett

The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Sword in the Stone – T.H. White

The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

Cheaper by the Dozen – Frank B. Gibreth

The Toothpaste Millionaire – Jean Merrill

A Llama in the Family – Johanna Hurwitz

Frindle – Andrew Clements

The Hundred Dresses – Eleanor Estes

The Railway Children – E.Nesbit

Pollyanna – Eleanor H. Porter

The Swiss Family Robinson – Johann Wyss

What was on your bookshelf this summer?